Emotions move us. The word, "emotion," derived from the Latin, literally means "to move." The ancients believed that emotions move behavior; in modern times we say they motivate behavior. They energize us to do things by sending powerful chemical signals to the muscles and organs of the body.

The only behaviors that emotions do not motivate are habits, such as tying your shoes or biting your nails or flopping down on your living room sofa without stopping to look. Because habits are processed in the brain in short-hand codes that consume little mental energy, no emotions are necessary to motivate habituated behavior - they run on automatic pilot. Emotions, mostly subtle or unconscious, prepare us to do almost everything else.

Whether subtle or intense, conscious or unconscious, overt or covert, all emotions have one of three motivations:

In avoid motivation, you want to get away from something - you lower its value and worthiness of your attention. Common avoid behaviors are ignoring, rejecting, withdrawing, looking down on, dismissing.

Motivations are basic, simple, and straightforward, while goals and intentions are complicated and often self-deceptive. For instance, parents often get confused about discipline of their children. Their usual goal is to teach their children cooperation and respect. But if they administer the discipline in anger, their motivation will be attack. Children, like the rest of us, respond to behavioral motivations, not to goals and intentions. The angry disciplinarian will likely invoke a response of submission, fear, rebellion, or resentment, rather than cooperation, respect, or love.

Feelings

Feelings are the conscious and most misunderstood component of emotions. In contrast to the simplicity of basic motivation, feelings are complex, ever-changing, and subject to moods (like depression), sensations (like warmth, cold, pleasure, pain, comfort, discomfort), and physiological states (like hunger and tiredness). All these can feel like emotions, and that is why people often give psychological and relationship meaning to anything that feels uncomfortable. Discomfort seems close enough to negative emotions to keep us hopelessly confused, as long as we focus on feelings instead of motivations.